You don't need to see these gifts....

These are not the droids you are looking for....Move along...

If you are my sister do not read this post......until after New Years.

For the rest of you.....

I present the hat:

(edited to add: I finally got a picture that's not fuzzy. It's not 100% clear, but better)

I love this little hat.

It took me forever to knit, but it was a nice learning experience.

It was my first colour work, stranding work, knitting with 2 hands, following a chart etc...so, big project.

But nice and simple given that you only use 2 colours per row. I love the little band for the lining. When I steam blocked the flap down It was such fun! I love how wool just relaxes and does what you want it to do.

I would knit this again! Thanks Carolyn.

And by special request, I present the wheel:

and neat little gear thing-y

It's obviously not finished as hubby ran out of time. He only bought the tools a week before Christmas and then caught the stomach virus, so I'm not surprised.

Neat little holes for decoration:

And more Christmas knitting:

Patons SWS in Natural Plum. I love these colours. The pictures don't do it justice--they are a very rich jewel tones.

This is going to be a Booga Bag for my sister. This time I am going to use 3 balls, as I learned my lesson from last time.

I know this is a quick knit, that's why I haven't started before now. I just plain old ran out of time.

Remind me to start November 1st next year, OK?

Merry Christmas..pass the Gravol

Yes, in fine tradition we have given ourselves the gift of a stomach virus once again.

Last years photo evidence:

This year, as we went for a new record of 6, yes that's SIX people all sick at the same time.

We had all hubby's family here this weekend and it was great...until Christmas Eve.
Right around 5pm I started feeling weird and FIL didn't go to Christmas Eve service.

We ate some hot dip (Chicken Wing Dip) some Cranberry Brie and munchies and settled ourselves for a movie.

I fell asleep and woke up sick. Then we all had a kitchen pow-wow at 4:30am to discuss gravol and ginger ale.

So, Christmas morning was a little slow (except for the kids, they were fine).


For a short moment I thought I had given us all food poisoning, but realized the FIL hadn't eaten any food.

Hubby was sick last Wed, the Monkey (aka Little Man) on Thursday and Princess B on Friday-so I guess it was inevitable, but still.

Luckily we had our Christmas dinner on Saturday because the only thing we ate on Christmas was soda crackers...

After they left yesterday I slept all afternoon and then just lay on the couch all night.

I woke up to this:

And for Christmas Knitting content I give you this:

(the colours don't show, but it's dark purple, med purple and light purple)

It's a modified Booga Bag that I made for my SIL. No finished picture as the batteries for the camera were scammed for kids toys.

I used wool from my sister's felted purse and the 3 pairs of felted slippers I've made in years past. I was going to use the random stripes generator, but actually just knit with the scrap balls until they ran out and then picked another colour.

I think it's cute, and she liked it.

Hubby did make me a spinning wheel but I won't post a picture b/c it's not finished.

Very exciting.

That was it for this Christmas knitting. My hand actually cramped out so badly that I didn't get the straps for the purse done until Christmas morning.

I hope I get the rest done for New Years.

How about you? Any fibre-y goodness this year?

Christmas Cheer

1. Tree, 2. Handmade Ornament, 3. Glass Slipper, 4. Doll

My tree is up and it is purdy. I took a couple of shots of some of my favourite ornaments. The Doll is a wooden ornament given to me by my parents in 1980. Mine has brown hair and my sister's is blonde, like her.

My sister gave me the glass ornament when I was 6 or 7--somethign she picked our herself as a kid, and I think it's pretty.

The handmade ornaments are ones that I got last year from friends. We got some more this year, and they are just beautiful.

I like looking at the tree in the dark, but it's really hard to get a good shot w/out it being blurry.

I got an early gift too.

Want to see more??

Pretty huh?

I won't be sharing anymore until the New Year, but I like what I see so far.

I hope to post Christmas gift knitting as it happens--I'm so far behind right now.

Hope everyone's Hollidays are safe and Merry.

6 weird things about me....

As promised, here are the pictures of the mitts:

They are a little wonky, but so is the pattern. For the end of the mitt it says "finish like a sock". Okay, thanks EZ, I know you are a genius, but give us a little help.

And a gratuitous kid picture from the weekend:

We had our Church skate and Christmas dinner. Princess B had fun with Daddy whipping her around the rink.

Saw this meme around and it got me thinking about weird things about me...there are probably more, so if you know me, chime in.

Here's what I came up with:

1. I can't drink really cold water. Makes me feel like I'm choking. I have even been known to heat water in the microwave so that I can drink it down.

2. When I walk up the stairs I like to end with my left foot. It's been that way since child-hood. I had all the stairs at home, school and church memorized so that I always ended with my left foot. (I'm left handed, does that explain it??)

3. I like to sniff cheeseburgers. Not so much anymore, but when I was younger whenever I would get a McDonald's cheeseburger I would open it up and sniff the inside before I took the first bite. Loved the smell, wanted to bottle it.

4. I have a fear of deep water. Watched JAWS too many times as a kid. It wasn't until I was about 20 that I actually swam in a lake for more than 10 minutes. I still can't swim out at the cottage.

5. I always put condiments on my burger in a specific order. Started when I was 12 and BBQ'd a hamburger almost every day for lunch for weeks.

6. I love the colour orange. I wore orange for 42 days in a row in college (different items of clothing). 42 was a random number I chose and by the end people I didn't know were giving me orange shirts and sweaters to wear "for the cause". I still love orange. I have orange crocs, an orange winter coat and many orange shirts and sweaters.

I don't have anyone to tag--as I'm not sure who actually does these, but if you it because you read it here..let me know.
Tag--you're it!!

One week.

One week since I posted, one week until Christmas.
Well, I'm not sure if I'll make it.
The R2D2 hat is almost done and I think it will be a hit.
The other gifts...I'm just not too worried about, although I should be.

We have some house guests right now, so things have been too busy to think Christmas.
I haven't even put my tree up, no decorations, nothing...

But there has been some Missionary work...I've taught one girl to knit and helped another with a Christmas gift for her b/friend.
We sort of hobbled together a pattern from EZ's Knitting W/out Tears and used some Paton's Classic Merino in a nice denim blue colour.
She did all the straight knitting and I did the shaping for her.
I'll snap a picture tomorrow.

Right now, it's off to bed for me.

I have the blahs. I think I just need to get my tree up and start wrapping.

A crazy thing happened on the way to the computer

Yesterday, I sit down at the computer and get an e-mail from someone at Random House Publishing asking if I would like to review some craft books on the blog.
Some e-mails went back and forth and basically they asked me to choose some knitting books off the site, review them (ie: make a project or 2 and discuss whether the patterns are well written, easy to follow etc) and blog about them.
There may be options to review other books as well.

You should check out the Random House website to see what they have.
I have never looked at their site before and I think I would need a couple of hours to actually go through the whole thing, but at first glance they have a lot of very interesting books.

On to the real reason you are here.
The Knitting (capital K, I like that )

There has been some knitting but not much blogging.
Hubby and I have had 3 outings in 3 days and we have house guests so things have been busy.
THe little hat is coming along, but not finished yet.

I will likely be able to get some good knitting done in the next 2 days so it shoudl be finished.
I just love the little R2D2.


We've been part of some nice get together's in the past 3 days and have had WAY TOO MUCH FOOD.
But it's been really fun.

I'm going to post a recipe since I've made this twice in the past 3 days and will make it again on Thursday for another thing.

Hot Chicken Wing Dip:

1 pkg (10 oz) cream cheese, softened
3-4 chicken breasts
1 bottle hot sauce (Red Hot, or other hot sauce/chicken wing sauce of your choice)
1 jar Renee's Blue Cheese Dressing
(Renee's or jarred dressing tends to be thicker than bottled dressing)

Cut up chicken breasts into bite sized pieces. Cook in a pot of salted water for approx 15 minutes until cooked through (I have also seen this recipe done with chicken in a can, or you could use pre cooked chicken pieces).
Add hot sauce to your liking. If you want it milder just coat the chicken with hot sauce. Make it soupy if you like it hot!
Place softened cream cheese in the bottom of an oven proof dish (8" round or 8x8 square).
Put chicken and hot sauce mix over cream cheese.
Spread blue cheese dressing over the top.
Bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes until bubbling.

Serve with Nacho chips or crackers.
It will lose some consistency if re=heated in the microwave, but tastes just as good !!

I'll leave you with a blurry Saturday Sky:

I'd like to use a lifeline

I actually did a lot of knitting yesterday, but you can't tell.
Little Man slept for 3 hours and Princess B was just feeling lazy so we sat and knit and watched a movie and had a quiet day.
I knit the same part of the R2D2 hat 3 times yesterday, then it occurred to me--lifeline.

People talk about lifelines when knitting lace, but since I've never knit lace, I've never used one.
I thought it would be simple, just thread some yarn under part of the hat that is correct and then when I needed to frog back I'd be all set--so I did.
It worked for a bit, but when I went to pull it out to move it, it got tangled. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I took it out I made a mistake.

I sat there for a minute and thought to myself. "Why do I even Knit in the first place? Apparently I'm not very good at it"
But, I trudge on.

I love knitting.
I won't give it up, it just seems like I ALWAYS have problems.
Knots in yarn, not enough yarn, wrong decreases, messes up the chart in the pattern, over felted, blah blah blah.
It goes on.

I have a little while to finish this hat, so I"ll just keep trudging on.

First snow pictures:
Little man loved the snow until he did a face plant and came up with a face-full.

Princess B LOVES to make snow angels and just plopped herself down.

We've just come back from some shopping and I am totally going to make these:
I bought some glass ornaments today half off and I have some funky yarn samples around from when my sister signed me up for the yarn a month thing. It's a great idea, but now I have about 30 little baggies with fun and funny yarns that are too small to do anything with.
Some of them I will keep, but you can only use so much eye-lash yarn.

I actually fixed my slippers today too.
Before, the little hole had become a big mess, but now it's all fixed and my toes are back in the slipper where they belong. (blogger doesn't like pictures of the slipper, so no picture)

I'm going now to get crafty.....

Like sands through the Hourglass....

so is the pile of ...... mess...that is my sweater.

So, apparently I missed the invisible writing in the instructions which tells you to use 4 markers instead of 2.
So, instead of doing decreases before and after 4 markers.....yeah...
let's just say the back of my sweater has NO shaping and I didn't' realize a thing until I counted the stitches...again and again and again, and couldn't figure out why I had about 80 extra stitches.
I actually thought--wow the errata doesn't even mention this, so I should go google it.
Then I accidentally flipped to another part in the book that has a picture of the back of the sweater and almost cried.
Raglan shaping exists on the front AND back of sweaters...
whoops.

I seriously thought about just continuing on and having it all gape-y in the back...
I could grow a hump...Couldn't I??

It was comforting to read that the Harlot has similar problems.
I was reading her 2nd book today, all about her adventures in steeking and the St Moritz sweater. It took her 172 days or something to finish it. She also did some wrong shaping and had 2 different sleeves.
Okay, so if her knitting can kick her butt, so can mine.

So, the Hourglass is now in time-out and I think I shall go back downstairs and drown my sorrows in some really good guacamole.

It's all about food for me recently. Wendy posted and AMAZING cornbread recipe here:
(you should try it, I've made it twice in the past week and the family just devours the whole pan). (Maybe Wendy can send me some good sweater making vibes. She can apparenlty knit and ENTIRE sweater in about...Oh a week or less)

I'm needing some new recipe's...So here's the thing.

If you are reading this, e-mail me or give me a comment with a favourite recipe.
Now please don't say "I like pizza" or "Chicken is good"--I'm talkin' real recipe's, something different.
Maybe a household favourite, a family tradition or something you've just picked up recently.

I'll start:
Porkchops with Pear Stuffing
*I love this recipe and it's so easy and only has 5 ingredients*

4 bone in porkchops , approx 1 inch thick.
2 TB margarine or butter
2 ripe pears, unpeeled, cored and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 medium (red) onion, chopped
3 cups packaged herb-seasoned stuffing mix.

Sprinkle porkchops with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper.
Brown porkchops in a skillet on medium heat for approx 15 minutes total, turning halfway through. Chops should be browned and meat just losing it's pink colour throughout. Set aside

Melt margarine/butter and cook pears and onions until soft. (About 10 minutes)

Add 1 1/4 cups water and heat to boiling over medium-high heat.
Add stuffing mix, stirring constantly until mixture is even moistened and hot.
Return pork chops to pan to heat through.

I love making this recipe in the fall--sooo yummy...

Next pictures you will see will be holiday knitting.
Only 21 days left people....
21 days...

gak.

edited to add: IT'S SNOWING.
They've had snow in Orlando Florida, Albuquerque NM, B.C., Washington and everywhere else--but now it's finally here!!!
Wheee!!!

I must confess

I did not finish the Hourglass for November.
Nor, December 1st--which was my goal
I knit a lot in the past couple of days--made 1.5 sleeves and have done the yoke--but then last night I was so tired I missed a K2tog and messed up the yoke. I wanted to cry.
I actually frowned at it and thought of ways to just fix it by ripping down, but it wouldn't do.
So, I frogged a couple of inches.

Now, today, my wrists are screaming at me--and since I didn't make the deadline anyways, I am not going to knit through the pain. Last time I did that I paid the price (wrist braces for a week)

I am going out to a Christmas party tonight, so no knitting today---but I did something fiber-y.

I bought this:


It's a 1/2 pound of Romni from Rosehaven Farms.
I asked about BFL or Corriedale but Linda said Romni is a good fiber for learning.
I was almost going to buy some Mohair, but it was too silky, and yet still scratchy.
So, my plan is to beg for a better spindle for Christmas (I asked hubby today if he had my present--cuz I was just going to TELL him what to get) but he says he has it under control.
Ideally I'd love to get a decent spindle (not a $50 one, but something better than what I have) and a lesson. I'd love to go to the local spinners guild meeting a few times, if time/hubby allow.
(he would need to be home w/ the kids)

I think I will dye this roving and then spin it.

Maybe using a warping board just isn't for me...I just found it really time consuming and I haven't even put the yarn back on the swift to wind it yet.
Hm.....maybe I'm just annoyed that I bought the fingering weight Peruvian from Knit picks which feels like dental floss. Not stringy but really thin and I feel like if I sneeze on it, it will break.
Maybe I will try again with the Henry's Attic Kona SUperwash I got...
we'll see.

I need more help re: mixing the dye.
The Yarns to Dye For book I have says to mix 1/2 tsp with 80z water and that is your stock.
That seems like a lot of dye per batch (ie: I'd likely use that whole 8oz per skein...I think)
I don't know.
I am interested in this book:

So, hubby if you are reading this, I have conveniently put 2 wishlists in the sidebar (at the top, you can't miss them).....so go...

Later added: OOOH OOOH OOOH
I'm back trying to post this post again (blogger is being dumb again and not posting pictures, this is day 2 trying)
So, i'm googling around and found this:

The Yarn Harlot had a series where a guest blogger did a serious on dyeing roving.
B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.
yep, i'm ready to get started right now.....
need to have patience....need to actually learn what I am doing first.
need to get a spindle.
but i'm glad i found that site

and in other news.....

I these shoes:

OOOH WOW they are on crazy sale with free shipping....

What have I been up to?

Trying to finish the Hourglass for NaNoSweMo, dyeing and dreaming of sock yarn.

So, this is what I did today:


and here's where we're at now:


Pssst. What you can't tell is that I haven't started the second sleeve yet. But since I was less than a third done the body Monday nigiht when I picked it up, s that's pretty good.

To give my wrists a break, I was dyeing the other day.
Here it the yarn all warped up:

It seriously took me 1.5 hours to get the yarn on the warp board. Crazy.
Here it is steaming:

It's pink, black and purple. But it looks really junky all done.
Since the directions for acid dyes talk about putting the powder "in a pot" and throwing all the yarn in, it doesn't really help if you're trying to make stock and use squirt bottles or paintbrushes. I really have no idea what I am doing.

Help anyone?

How do you mix the dyes into a stock??
I've googled it, I've had a flickrmail response from someone who has tried, but it's still not workin' for me. Parts of the yarn are dark w/ colour, parts are not.
ALso, how do you control the bleeding of the colour??

Back to the sleeve, I will hopefully have a finished sweater to show tomorrow.

Words escape.....

And hubby claimed dibs on this:

I'm a joiner

So there's a guy who's doing some research to show how meme's travel in blogland.
I don't usually do meme's but I like this idea--of researching how info travels in blogland.
So, some knitters started blogging about it, and now here I'm doing it too.

Here's the deal:
Read this.
Link to this from your own blog.
Ping technorati.

that's all.

and now back to the hourglass. I've actually divided for the yoke and have started one sleeve.
Sigh--yawn and sleeep....

Frogs and Blobs

That's what's been going on here.
I haven't posted because all my knitting looks the same.

I had to frog some of the R2D2 hat because I made a mistake. Apparently I was only following 2 charts instead of 3 and, whoops. I was going to just keep going, but it looked weird so I frogged it.
So now I have this:


Which looks exactly the same as last time. Truth be told, I haven't worked on it since Thursday night.
That's for the frogs.
Now for the blobs:

this is the hourglass. Hm...kinda looks like this:

Yep, it's at the same spot I was before I frogged it. Which is good, but not if I'm going to finish for NaNoSweMo.

So, in other news, I found this at Walmart:

Ecofill yarn, part cotton, part acrylic. It feels really stringy but they've got great colours.
I picked up the free sweater pattern just to see it.
The weird thing is, according to the pattern, you only need 2 balls of yarn to make the sweater.
So, you can make a cotton sweater for less than $7 ?? Something is weird about that to me.
It would be a nice project for a first sweater. The stitch they used, they are calling a "fantasy stitch".
Anyways.

In the things arriving at our house department, look what we got:

2 love seats, an oversized chair, a side table and a coffee table.
All. For. Free.
There's a thing called Freecycle, that we belong to, and someone was offering them up.
They originally were offering just the loveseats, but were getting new furniture and wanted all of it gone.
It's really pretty, stylish and goes with our old Victorian. Truth be told, it's the nicest set of furniture in our entire house.

That's it for me.
Really. boring. post.

Haven't really been doing much. Cleaning the house, entertaining my MIL for the weekend, boring myself silly w/ this Hourglass knitting.
I actually fell asleep sitting up Sunday night with the row after row of stockinette.

I think I will do some sock dyeing tonight to entertain myself.

Oh, and I have bought some more sock yarn. Must. stop.
I have enough for the rest of my life. But, it was fun money from e-bay sales, so I'm not feeling too guilty.
I got some Socks that Rock, Fleece Artist and some Lime and Violet Etsy sock yarn

That's all...and for now.
the laundry, it calls to me....

Duh: I totally forgot about the best part of the weekend.
Went out for coffee on Saturday morning with a friend who is knitting her first sock. She said she needed help w/ the heel--but she's really doing it all on her own.
She jumped in with both feet and decided to make "2 at a time toe-ups on 1 long circular" (just googol that, you'll get the pattern).
Yep, she's given herself a challenge, and she's done it all on her own.
Anyways, after some good coffee, good conversation and some sock knitting we went to find her daughter at the library and stumbled across a Knitting Group meeting in the kids section of the Library. It was a group of older women, but still fun.
Anyways, that could be a refuge if I needed to go and stitch with someone some-day.
Hubby and I also had a "no knit night".
We haven't done anything together in months. The last time we went to a movie was 18months ago and we haven't gone for dinner in a year...Sad.
anyways, I promised not to knit, we got some good burgers and a movie.
the Sentinel" I like Kiefer Sutherland (LOVE 24) and it was pretty good.
The ending was a bit of a let-down. It felt like it was just getting started and then it was over.
If you get the DVD, watch the deleted scenes, there's a REALLY cheesy scene with Kim Basinger's character telling a story about her childhood that was so lame I actually laughed outloud.

So, that was really my weekend. Knitting, coffee, knit group, good burger, movie and time with hubby.

I can see clearly, now the smudge is gone....

*Must sing that line*

Yep, eye is better.
Not 100% but better and it doesn't hurt anymore.
who'd-a-thunk-it? That an eye could hurt like that?
It's also hard to recover an injured eye, w/out sleeping. Chasing little people around, making forts, pulling babies off of tables and finding lost leggo does not fix an eye.
SO, after dinner last night (I actually made roast with potatoes and carrots--surprisingly easy--just throw it all in and turn on)--I tried to listen to some TV. Bad choice. Little man jumped on my rib cage and yelled "Giddy-up!".
So, I went upstairs to listen to some podcasts and fell asleep at about 7:30pm!
apparently I was tired.

Anyways, the monkey that started it all:

He's a cutie-- but a monkey none the less.

There have been more packages arrive at the house. I feel weird taking pictures of mail, but how else to show off the sock yarn I have been stockpiling

first a knitpicks order-which contained the dye I ordered and some knit picks needles. I have only knit on them for about an hour-and I LOVE them. Almost as good as Addi's.

The Redwood forest sock yarn doesn't yield a good picture, but it's gorgeous.
The Pink stuff is some free yarn I got off a blog. Someone decided she didn't like pink and Princess B was actually at the computer saying "OOOH pink yarn"--the lady was giving it away, and now it's in my house. Princess B saw it yesterday and said "Can you make me a dress". Um, no but how about some socks?

Some Cherry Tree Hill that I got for DIRT cheap on e-bay.

knitting Without Tears book from Destash

I think that's it for mail call.

At one point I actually said "I have no idea what's in this package" when the mail kept showing up.
But, since I sold a bunch of stuff on e-bay, this is not money that is taking away from, y'know feeding the kids, paying the hydro bill.

This stuff I'm really excited about:

There was a LYS owner who died suddenly in March. I had only bought 1 skein of her hand-dyed which I used for Sockapalooza here:

Her friends got together and re-opened her store, calling it a "collective".

WOW!
They space they have is amazing, they have all of what's left of her handpainted stuff (sock yarn and mohair). They've invested in some new stuff (Noro, Euroflax LInen and others) and are really trying to make a go of it. Amy told me about where to find it, and when I was Christmas shopping on Monday I popped in at the end of the day.

Need to say: I LOVE MY HUBBY!

Monday, I slept in (as I had been up until 3am knitting on Christmas gifts).

I woke up to a clean kitchen, toys picked up, dishes done, stove scrubbed (?). He took the kids to get the mail, went to the Library and stumbled upon a playgroup so he stayed. He took them to a play group!!
Came home with lunch and then said "No problem" when I said I wanted/needed to go Christmas shopping to catch some sales and be done with our lists.

I need to publicly blog my appreciation.

And, with that, and as I can hear that the little monkey might actually be sleeping, I will go and test the eye with some knitting.

No knitty, no posty

i have stuff to share, but can't right now.
Little Man poked me in the eye this morning and according to the hospital, he scratched my cornea.
So, i can't see straight and it hurts to blink.
maybe tomorrow....

More sunshine

Well, not real sunshine, that would be silly.

More mail call--wohoo!

Lookie at what came to my house!

Yeah--I can finally do some dyeing with my warp board.

Silly Canadian customs people. They charged me $10, for the priviledge of having yarn brought into this country.... They didn't open the package and apparently didn't really read the label either.

LOOK WHAT THEY WROTE:

ha ha ha.

Okay, so I did some more spinning last night, and it was so fun.

I did a bit better, but i think i have too much twist. The spindle barely spins before it's trying to reverse itself. I can't even pinch and draft because it's going too fast.

but it looks pretty cool, i think considering i have no idea what I'm doing.

My first attempt apparently wanted to go back to roving because all the twist came out.

i spun it again and it's not too bad either.

I think I'd like to call up the local guild and see if i could go once to get a lesson.

That would be fun!!

Either that or invite one of you nice readers to come to the great white north to teach me!

The home of Mission Falls Yarn is about 20 minutes from here..Not that I know where Mags lives, but still. Any takers?

Oh, and this is for the Giving Flower:

The colours aren't exactly true, but it's pretty close. This is for the Ribbi Cardi that we both are doing.....

A day without mail is like a day without sunshine

Oh happy day.
Look what I got...

and there's still more to come.

This is both of my Elann orders (Christmas gift yarn and Ribbi Cardi Yarn)

and some sock yarn

from this Etsy seller.

I like it, I call it the Kermit Yarn. She called it "Down by the banks".

I also did some spinning:

This is a Babe Spindle that I bought off of E-bay. I read the directions and tried before but didn't really get anything but thick tangled nubbies (is that a word?).

I still have think and thin nubbies, but it's better. The roving is not very soft, so I'm thinking I needed to do more w/ it before trying to spin. I did pull it apart a bit, but then it just broke off into pieces, which were harder to spin back in.

I found this site, and this one, with more directions.
The video is cool and she makes it look so easy. My spindle is apparenltly 2.2 oz but it feels so light.

Anyways, I"m thinking I want to get some roving and practice.

I just heard about a woman who spins--angora and wool and has all these skeins of yarn and is just now learning to knit.
I can't imagine being surrounded by gorgeous fibres and not being able to do anything with it!

Anyways, any spinning tips would be greatly appreciated.